The Rainbow Princess
by SecretBox
Summary: Jess decides that he wants to be a colorful person; —•x♥ Jess x Leslie.


**A/N: **Ahem. So . . . I read the book when I was in fifth grade and I saw the movie -- loved it! watched it three times in a row -- just the other day. Even though it was set in a different time period I think Disney did an awesome job conveying the theme. Jess x Leslie is pure love. Lots of love. Seriously, it's so darn cute! During the movie when Jess kept staring at Leslie in the rain I was all like, "OMG! SO sad yet so adorable!" xD

Anyway, I loved it SO much I was inspired to write a little something for it. It's a sort of AU, set during the movie. Don't mention anything about the hand holding thing; yes, I know that never happened. But it should have!

**Warning:** Rated for cursing and fluffiness.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the book or the movie "Bridge to Terabithia".

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**The Rainbow Princess**

jess x _leslie_

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**L**eslie is a kaleidoscope wrapped up all gorgeous like in a pretty girl-shaped box, tied up with a string and arriving to the naked eyes in a c o l o r f u l package with a cherry bow on top, and Maybelle is just her glimmering silver complexion (mirror) whereas Jess is just a crisp, blank sheet of paper waiting for the strokes of paint to flow, flow, and go; afterall, she's the (one and only) rainbow princess and he's the artist with the sketchbook and dull-colored pencils clenched between bronzed finger-tips struggling to capture her essense, her divinity.

When she walks, she carries her head high and breezes through the door like there's really nothing to it. A lot of girls don't like her because she's got her head up in the clouds with her aqua dreams and always_always_ smiling pearly, white grins, especcially when she sloshes through the gray puddles in her neon-orange decorated boots gripping that sopping-wet, high marked paper clenched between her ivory fingers. Leslie likes retro style, and she looks cute in her miss-matched outfits and her gogo-boots and glazed, dreamy irises. She's got her yellow hair all loose and flowing like that, and Jess can't help but stare and admire the way she carries herself because she simply shines with utmost bubbliness and confidence.

Girls don't like Leslie. Leslie and her retro. Leslie and her gogo-boots. Leslie and her daydreams. "Why are you so weird?" Janice retorts with venom lacing her breath as she blocks the door to the girl's bathroom. Leslie simply beams and grins and talks about trolls hiding underneath bridges. She carries her fantasy-themed books pressed against her budding chest with her heart-shaped backpack slung over one shoulder and trails behind Jess aimlessly, the impossibly weird new girl behind the nobody who's only desire is to blend into the shadows (Jess has always been trying to disappear but it's damn near impossible when you've got sunshine chasing you down a dirt road).

Before he knows it, she's swaggled him with pretty words lined with the undertone of so much more and she's dragged him into a friendship he never knew he really wanted. Maybelle's green with envy and mulls around in the house with her Barbie dolls everyday, while Leslie slowly peals back the skeptical layers of Jess' mind and fills it with the splendor and endless beauty that is imagination. He was (and still is) dirt poor before he ever met her, but now he's rich and lush with other things far better than money could ever afford him.

"Best friends forever," she says and Jess grins like he's high (high on her and her sunshine smile is more like it) and she laughs and leads him by the hand through the Enchanted forest of their make-believe world. Their escape from reality and school and Janice Avery and Scot Hoger: _Terabithia_.

It's a Friday afternoon when he realizes he loves her a little more than just a friend but less than the way he thinks he loves Ms. Edmunds. Leslie's hand is smaller than his own and warm, warming his insides like no rich, hot cocoa ever could. The plastic lavender barette in her hair is shiny and dewy when she turns to face him one last time. Sunshine is falling off of her lips as her twinkling sapphire eyes gaze back at him over one shoulder, their trusty troll-hunting dog squirming in her arms, licking at her rain-streaked face affectionately. "Bye," she says, laughingly.

Jess finds his mind swamped with an odd exchange of both relief and loss when he pushes away the eccentric desire to kiss her, nodding goodbye just as she pivots on her toes and runs back to her house in an array of through the pouring sheets of icy, cold rain.

He does not know exactly how long he stands there in the middle of the pouring rain, but when his senses come back to him he stares at the skirl of bright colors hanging in the air from where he last saw her a (_the_) final time, before turning on his tail and running home. A resolution forms and comes to life in his head, flashing across his closed eyelids.

Leslie Burke didn't care that he wore hand-me-down girl sneakers, or that he was awkward with stupid freckles on the bridge of his nose (She says, "I love them, they're like stars on your face") and he's skinny and pale and she just cares too _much_. Her heart is bursting full of love and child-like bliss and sometimes he worries that she loves too much and one day her heart will explode and her heartshards will be wasted on the pavement she so adores.

So while Leslie is a kaleidoscope wrapped up all gorgeous like in a pretty girl-shaped box, tied up with a string and arriving to the naked eyes in a c o l o r f u l package with a cherry bow on top, and Maybelle is just her glimmering silver complexion (mirror) Jess will keep on being the crisp, blank sheet of paper waiting for the strokes of paint to _flow_, _flow_, and go; he'll use to draw the kind of person he wants to be.

Jess decides that he wants to be a colorful person.

_--**f**in_.


End file.
